Bharat SainiLast Updated on July 15, 2017 by Bharat Saini
Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia’s premier defence summit, launched in 2002 by British think tank the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) and the Singaporean government, is the most important annual gathering of defence professionals in the Asia-Pacific region. It gets its name from the location of the meeting, the Shangri-La hotel in Singapore where it has been held since 2002. In Shangri-La Dialogue military representatives from some of the world’s most powerful countries discuss pressing and significant defence and security issues. Government delegations make the best out of the meeting by holding bilateral meetings with other delegations on the sidelines of the conference. The legislators, academic experts, journalists and business delegates from around the globe attending the summit make it a vehicle for public policy development and discussions on defence and security in the Asia-Pacific.
16th Asia Security Summit, the Shangri-La Dialogue, a unique meeting of ministers and delegates, took place on June 2 to 4, 2017 in Singapore with over 500 delegates representing 32 nations from across the Asia-Pacific and beyond; deliberated on the region’s most enduring security challenges. Arun Jaitley who handles both the finance and defence portfolios, did not attend the three-day security forum due to his busy schedule, besides Prime Minister Narendra Modi being on four nation tour during the period; but representatives from Indian High Commission, members of BJP foreign cell and some think tanks participated on India’s behalf. The Chinese side also did not participate at the defence minister level.
The 16th Asia– Pacific Security Summit deliberated on the following agenda:
- Cooperation key to prosperity
- Strengthening alliances for regional stability
- No room for complacency in regional order.
- Forging collective responses to crises
- Holistic approaches to transnational problems
- Laying the foundations for growth
The IISS Shangri-La Dialogue saw panelists offer varied approaches on addressing the region’s most challenging security questions, with North Korea’s nuclear and missile programme, religious extremism and South China Sea disputes dominating the debate.
The fight against extremist groups was one of the main topics discussed at the Shangri-La Dialogue, in the wake of the Manchester and London attacks, pipe bombs in Bangkok, suicide bombings in Jakarta, and a besieged city in the southern Philippines; with participants admitting that the Southeast Asian nations harbor few doubts about the likelihood of more terrorism ahead.
